Columbia University Launches New Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative

The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School (CBS) has launched a new initiative designed to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the university as a whole, the school announced last week.

Called [email protected] (Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Columbia), the program will be taught by faculty from the Business, Law and Engineering schools and will be offered at no cost to Columbia University faculty, staff and students. The hope is that it will help transform the ideas and technologies of the university community into new products, services, processes and licensing revenues.

“Capitalizing on the intellectual capacity, creativity, business acumen and the spirit of innovation at Columbia University, the goal of the [email protected] program is to provide a comprehensive platform for those interested in developing their business ideas into successful ventures,” Clifford Schorer, Entrepreneur-in-Residence of the Lang Center, said in a statement.

An admission committee will select approximately 50 participants in early December. The program will run from late January until May, during which time teams will cover topics ranging from the entrepreneurial process and financial forecasting to product design and intellectual property, among others. Each participating team also will develop a fundable business proposal and pitch it to angel investors and venture capitalists at the culmination of the program.